STACK NZ Magazine December Issue 58

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MIND OVER
MATTER
Writer-director Luc Besson claims his wild new sci-fi
action-thriller LUCY has its basis in science fact.
F rench filmmaker Luc
Besson established
his reputation as a
visual stylist with films like La
Femme Nikita and The Fifth
Element. But lately he’s been
largely content with writing and
producing slick action
franchises like The Transporter
and Taken. His new film, Lucy,
sees him return to the
director’s chair to deliver an
exhilarating action-thriller that
combines his past experience
with both sci-fi and femme
fatales.
Scarlett Johansson plays the title character,
an “average girl” vacationing in Taiwan who is
duped into becoming a drug mule for ruthless
gangster Mr. Jang (played by original Oldboy,
Choi Min-Sik). But when the package of blue
crystals that’s been surgically implanted in her
abdomen bursts and floods her system, the
result is not so much the
ultimate high as a higher
state of being – ramping
up her brain function and
unlocking previously dormant
superpowers and abilities.
Lucy isn’t just another
superhero film, however,
but rather an existential
exploration of the untapped
powers of the human mind,
and what would happen if we
could utilise 100 per cent of
our brainpower.
The concept had been
percolating in Besson’s
own brain for a decade. Fascinated by the
possibilities of such a scenario, he was
determined to thoroughly research the subject
to ensure that Lucy’s transformation was
grounded in scientific fact.
“After I met with a few scientists, I was
amazed by what they told me: about the fact
that we have hundreds of billions of cells that
communicate with one another,” Besson
explains. “Apparently, each cell sends out
something like 1,000 signals per second. The
Web is nothing compared to that. It took me
a few years to find the right balance between
what is real and what is fantasy.”
In order to better understand the enigma that
is the human brain, Besson consulted world-
renowned neurologist and cell biologist Yves
Agrid. “When Luc told me about the screenplay,
I found it extraordinary,” Agrid recalls. “Still,
I had to rein in his creativity a bit with facts,
which was easy in the end, because he
understands everything so quickly.”
Agrid also notes that despite the wild premise
and fantastical nature of the film, Lucy is very
much anchored in scientific fact. “For instance,
Lucy deals with the number of cells in the brain,
the number of signals per second produced
by one cell, etc,” he explains. “By taking
advantage of all these figures, Luc implements
a fascinating dynamic throughout the film. Of
course, the more Lucy advances through the
movie, the more the story becomes fictional,
which I find extremely robust. When you see
the film, you believe it. It grabs you because it’s
grounded, to some extent, in reality.”
Besson adds: “There’s a combination of
factors that make this possible, involving really
bad people and a new kind of drug. Well, it’s
not exactly a drug; it’s a natural substance that
pregnant women produce in the sixth week of
natal development called CPH4. I came up with
this idea, which according to some doctors I
spoke with, is not entirely illogical.
“At some point, when you open up the
capacity of your brain, if you can access 20
per cent, you can open 30 per cent. When you
reach 30 per cent, you can open 40 per cent and
so on. It’s a domino effect. So Lucy is colonising
her own brain, and she can’t stop it. She doesn’t
want it, and she doesn’t even know what to do
with it.”
As to what happens when 100 per cent of the
brain is accessed, you’ll have to see the movie,
and Besson hopes that the experience will
stimulate our own grey matter. “I want people
to come out of the film and say, ‘Oh
my God! I’d love to find out more
about the brain and intelligence’,
and then go online to learn more
about it.”
• Lucy
is out on Dec 17
Writer-director
Luc Besson
18
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